


New Perspectives on the Origins of Paranormal Experiences

by sleepy_santiago



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Historical, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, Ghost Kissing, Ghost!Abed, House restoration, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Slow Burn, major character death but he's a ghost it's fine, oh my god they were ghost roommates, trobed endgame ofc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26041477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_santiago/pseuds/sleepy_santiago
Summary: When he moved into 25 Cornelia Avenue, a brownstone townhouse whose bricks boasted five generations of grime and whose flowerbeds exploded with a rainbow of weeds, Troy Barnes expected creaky floorboards and leaky faucets that he could fix easily enough. He hadn’t expected a handsome Victorian ghost with a charred past.He certainly hadn't expected to fall in love with the ghost.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Original Male Character(s), Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 179
Kudos: 199





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [adorable fanart](https://12-horses-in-drag.tumblr.com/post/632438045342351360) by 12-horses-in-drag
> 
> [gorgeous playlist](https://merely-indifferent.tumblr.com/post/632425631014060032/oh-my-god-they-were-ghost-roomates-i-made-a) by merely-indifferent
> 
> i cannot stress how perfect these both are. thank you so much for blessing me with them :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cherie (biggod on ao3) deserves credit for a large chunk of the dialogue in the last scene of this chapter. as such, this fic is dedicated to cherie, my love :)
> 
> thank you jude, cherie, michelle, ashley, and other friends for betaing!
> 
> title ripped from a ghost studies book's subtitle.

_The wind blows and it makes a noise. Pain makes a noise. We bang on the pipes and it makes a noise. Was there no one else?_

\- Richard Siken

* * *

When he moved into 25 Cornelia Avenue, a brownstone townhouse whose bricks boasted five generations of grime and whose flowerbeds exploded with a rainbow of weeds, Troy Barnes expected creaky floorboards and leaky faucets that he could fix easily enough. He hadn’t expected a ghost. 

But then again, the deal had seemed too good to be true. Troy and his realtor, Mr. Stone, had gone through a list of apartments all around the city — lofts, studios, even basement units. As a fresh community college graduate with nothing but a few AC repair customer testimonies to his name, Troy couldn’t afford any of them. 

He’d almost given up hope when Mr. Stone hesitated, then pulled a sheaf of papers out of his drawer.

“There is one more unit you could consider,” Mr. Stone had said. “It’s a townhouse. Lovely location at Cornelia and Oak, perfect for transit and within reach of most of the essentials. And it’s within your budget.”

“What? Why didn’t you lead with that? Can we go see it now?” Troy snatched the papers out of Mr. Stone’s hand. _25 Cornelia Avenue_ , the first page read, with a small colour image of the townhouse underneath.

“It’s… Well, you’ll see.”

At the townhouse, Mr. Stone unlocked the heavy black front door with a key from the master ring he fished out of his briefcase. Before pushing the door open and stepping inside, he seemed to listen for something — then he shook his head and crossed the threshold with Troy at his heels. 

“She’s a bit of a fixer-upper,” said Troy, gazing around at the peeling, yellowed wallpaper and the crumbling fireplace. There was no furniture except for a boxy old mahogany television sitting in the corner, not plugged in to anything. “But nothing I can’t fix with a monkey wrench and a few coats of paint!” 

Troy could already feel the buzz in his veins. If anything, the townhouse’s decrepit condition was just another plus — he already couldn’t wait to get to work replacing old pipes and tearing up old carpets. He’d spent too much of his time in the last couple of years sitting at desks twiddling his thumbs; it would be nice to burn some of his excess energy off with a big project.

And with a bit of work, well… Troy could see how the sunlight filtering in through the windows hit the exposed brick wall. This place could be great.

Troy turned to face Mr. Stone with a blinding grin. “I’ll take it!”

Mr. Stone hesitated again, biting his lip. “Okay, look, I wouldn’t normally tell you this, but I’ve had seven clients over the last four years break their contract and dump this place back on me. And I need to make sure you won’t do the same thing.” He took a deep breath. “There’s something wrong with this place. According to records, it was remodelled after a deadly fire in the late eighteen-hundreds and hasn’t held down a long-term tenant since. Without fail, anyone who moves in here leaves within three months — screaming about apparitions and things inside the walls and weird lights and sounds. The last client who lived here swore up and down that she saw a ghost.”

“... Awesome,” Troy breathed.

Mr. Stone frowned. “Mr. Barnes, I’m quite serious. If you want to take this unit, I need to know that you’re committed. Ghosts and all.” His eyes flicked toward the stained ceiling, as if he’d heard a sound.

Troy looked around again. He ran a hand along the mantel — his hand came away with a coat of dust on it. He shrugged. “What choice do I have? I can’t afford anything else.” Besides, he’d always thought that ghosts were misunderstood. 

“Alright,” said Mr. Stone, smiling. “Let’s get back to my office to sign the contract.” He cast another glance around the living room where they stood, rubbed his blazer-clad arms, and stepped outside. 

~

Troy’s first night in 25 Cornelia Avenue came accompanied by the sound of footsteps outside his bedroom door, a rhythmic clanging in the vents, and a strange, high-pitched moan that echoed behind the hollow walls. Troy tossed and turned, tangling the bedsheets around his legs. 

Something thumped right behind his headboard. Troy sat bolt upright, heart rabbiting. He could almost feel the presence behind him, could almost hear the quiet breaths and sense the heat (or chill?) of whatever it was. 

“People are only scared of ghosts ‘cause they’ve never tried to understand where you’re coming from,” Troy said softly. “Imagine thinking you were going to heaven, only to end up having to spend eternity in the exact same spot where you’d died — and probably had the worst experience of your life. Hey, I’d be pretty mad, too. I’m on your side.”

Hardly daring to breathe, he slowly turned his head to look behind him.

Nothing. Only the chipped plaster of the wall, blue-grey in the moonlight. Outside, the sounds of late-night traffic assured him that this was real life, not _Paranormal Activity_.

Troy released his breath. He ignored the slight tremor in his hands as he pulled the thin blanket up to his chest. 

Then a screeching face made entirely of licking flames burst out of the wall in front of Troy. 

The scream Troy let out rivalled that of Shelley Duvall’s in _The Shining_. He leapt out of bed, hopping from foot to foot and clutching his face. 

“Oh God, I had a dream it would end this way,” Troy moaned. 

The flaming face flared and vanished as instantaneously as it had appeared.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Troy yelled at the wall. The shadow of the tree outside waved in a slight breeze. “WHAT THE HELL, MAN? YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT!” He bounced on his knees and peered warily around. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but a wisp of a dry chuckle floated by and out the bedroom door. 

“I just wanna sleep,” Troy mumbled sadly, climbing back into bed. 

As he finally drifted off after another hour of staring up at the ceiling, holding the blanket up to his neck, Troy thought he heard the sound of static and then a laugh track from a sitcom from the living room downstairs.

~

During the day, Troy loved 25 Cornelia Avenue. He loved peeling away the wallpaper, the soothing motion of rolling the forest-green paint he’d chosen onto the plaster walls. He loved the way the sun lit up the kitchen and the way the house seemed to sigh in relief as he brushed the thick coats of dust away from its clefts and crevices. He loved the breaths he could feel rising and falling beneath his feet when he unclogged the choked-up chimney and drain pipes.

When Troy started working on the living room on his third day living in the townhouse, he found himself standing in front of the old TV set, hands on his hips. Distantly, he remembered his first night here and the TV sounds he thought he’d heard as he fell asleep. 

Troy knelt and peered behind the bulky mahogany shoulder of the TV. No cords or wires. Not even a nearby outlet. He prodded the ON/OFF button. Nothing happened.

“Alright,” Troy muttered. “Time for you to go. Where do people take old things like you, anyway? Recycling plant? Thrift store? The side of the curb?” Humming a familiar jazz melody, Troy squatted, hefted the TV into his arms, and rose to his feet.

A burst of static exploded from the TV.

Tripping over his own feet and fumbling for his grip on the TV, Troy stumbled and dropped the TV. It landed upright and with a bone-shaking rattle that should have indicated that nothing inside the TV could amount to a working system. 

But here it was now, playing a _Cougar Town_ rerun on its grainy display — specifically, an outdoor cafe scene where a thin dark-haired man in a suit sat behind Busy Phillips, shaking his head and reacting to her dialogue. The dark-haired man looked directly into the camera, into Troy’s eyes, and fled from the scene, scuffling noisily with the metal chair. The TV screen blinked off again. 

“Are you trying to send me a message?” Troy called out at the house. “Are you going to kill me?” He rubbed his arms. 

More silence. Troy grew annoyed. He kicked at the side of the TV. 

“I’m gonna throw this stupid thing out!” he threatened. Troy Barnes would not be bested by a ghost.

There was a heavy scrape and a creak from upstairs — it sounded like Troy’s bed frame. 

Unimpeded, Troy lifted the TV again and marched toward the front door. A blast of cold air rushed down the hallway and slammed the door shut. 

“Okay,” Troy said. “So you want the TV to stay?”

The cold breeze curled around Troy’s ankles like a cat.

“Is it important to you?”

The air squeezed Troy’s ankles. 

With a sigh, Troy traipsed back into the living room. 

That night, as he lay staring at the moonlit patterns of tree branches shaking in the wind on his ceiling, Troy heard a short flare of static from downstairs and then the sounds of TV characters arguing followed by a laugh track. He slid into sleep, lulled by the dulcet tones of _Cougar Town_ and _Parks And Rec_.

~

On his second week in 25 Cornelia Avenue, Troy finally started working on his bedroom. He didn’t really know why he’d left the bedroom for last, but as he began to sweep up the floors and knock the cobwebs out of the closet, he realized that he was staying. After a childhood of bouncing back and forth between his divorced parents’ homes, and a college career of moving from dorm to shitty dorm each year, Troy Barnes had begun to make a home for himself in this little corner of the city — ghosts and all. The thought made his heart swell with pride.

As he reflected, Troy’s broom sent a loose bolt skittering under the bed. He clambered to his knees to reach underneath. 

“Yeouch!” Troy’s knee knocked against a loose floorboard sticking out beside one of the legs of the bed. He swore and tried to push the board down, but it sprang back up — it was bent into a shape that opened a gap in the floor. 

Troy shifted positions, trying to get a better angle on the board. His movement allowed the sunlight from the window to slip over his shoulder and shine into the crevice. A glint of metal caught Troy’s eye. There was something hidden beneath the loose floorboard. 

He dug his fingers under the loose board and pulled. It gave with little resistance. He set the board aside and reached into the dark space inside. He lifted out a wooden box about a foot in length. Painted a faded dark green with floral embellishments that had blurred into smudges decades ago, the box was singed black at the edges. It had a brass keyhole, but the lid was loose and slid off the box when Troy tilted it. 

Troy coughed at the plume of dust that rose from the box. The dust cleared, but the smell didn’t: the smell of old libraries and secondhand bookshops magnified tenfold, of wood pulp and aged ink, of hidden memories and whispered confessions. 

Inside the box sat a stack of yellowed envelopes with broken wax seals, filed neatly. Troy pulled out the one closest to him. The spidery script on the front read:

_Raphael Taylor_

_45 Cornelia Street_

_Port Vincent, NY 10274_

Troy slid the letter out of the envelope, shook off a cloud of dust, and unfolded it. 

_June 20, 1886_

_Dear Raphael,_

_Scarcely have I spent a day outside of our home and your embrace, yet I already feel as if a part of me has been cut away. My love, I began counting down the days until I will see you again the moment I boarded the train with one suitcase and your letter tucked in my breast pocket — resting over my heart. This conference may be a step forward in my career as a writer and a scholar, but I cannot help mourning each mile it wedges between us._

_Forgive me; I do not mean to be maudlin. I did not begin writing this letter with the intention of complaining. I only wish you were here with me. I am sitting in a compartment very close to the dining car and the aroma of croissants and tea reminds me of afternoons spent reading penny dreadfuls aloud to you, of the crinkles around your mouth and eyes when you laugh at the gory parts and the little dip in between your brows that appears when I begin rambling about character motivations and genre tropes instead of continuing on to the next chapter._

_The view is just divine — we are now rumbling past a rolling countryside and the sun is setting — my love, you would have adored this scene. Look, there’s a lavender field — and now a pasture complete with grazing heifers._

_On any count, please remember to buy the next instalment of_ Black Bess: Knight of the Road _when it comes off the press in two weeks. But don’t read it without me. I shall return soon enough to narrate the exploits of Dick Turpin to you as you lie in my arms on our Cornelia Street veranda once again._

_Yours forever,_

_Abed Nadir_

“It’s rude to look at other people’s stuff,” said a petulant voice at Troy’s shoulder.

Troy shrieked — he was doing that a lot lately — and the box of letters flew into the air.

“That’s what you get for going through my stuff.” This time, the voice came from across the room. 

A tall, gaunt, semi-translucent man perched on top of Troy’s bookshelf. Troy’s Teen Titans action figures went through the man’s thigh. The man wore a pair of light trousers with a white shirt and black waistcoat hugging around his narrow torso. He had a hooked nose, round dark eyes, a jawline that could cut Troy’s palm, and a halo of dark curls around his head.

“W-what?” said Troy.

The translucent man pointed accusingly at the letter still clutched in Troy’s hand. “Those are private. You shouldn’t be reading them.”

“You — These can’t be yours,” Troy said. His face burned at having been caught snooping, even though this was his house and he didn’t know who the hell this misty stranger was. _Man up, Troy_.

“Have you seen _Ghost_?”

Troy short-circuited again. Being asked if he’d seen a Patrick Swayze film by a handsome, skinny Victorian man was not how he thought this day would go. “Uh. Yeah.”

The man nodded. “That’s me. You’re Whoopi Goldberg—” He pointed at Troy.

“ _Dude_ —”

“— and I need your help getting closure.” He pointed at his own chest.

“Oh.” Troy considered this. “Why now? Why me — and why do you know what a movie is?”

“Why are you here?” the man asked instead of answering.

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but I guess it all started when I pretended to throw out my shoulder doing a keg flip at a house party before a football game, which, all credit to me, actually still looked pretty awesome on video, and—” 

“I mean,” interrupted the man, “why are you still living in this house? Most people leave after a few weeks. They get scared of my ghost noises. They get mad at me when I turn on the TV. They really don’t like it when I appear to them in my true form in the middle of the night.”

“Wait — the flaming head? That was you?”

The man shrugged.

“Mr. Stone told me there was a fire here,” Troy murmured, connecting the dots. This was wrinkling his brain. “So were you the one who d—”

“I don’t wanna talk about that,” said the ghost. “And I asked you a question. Why are you still here?”

Troy frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be? I said when I first came to see this place that I’d stay. Plus, living with a ghost is kind of awesome when you think about it. A little annoying when you won’t tell me what you want and just make a racket instead, but it’s really not that bad.”

The man remained silent.

“Hey,” Troy said slowly, “would it be okay with you if I keep these?” He gestured at the letters. “I figure since you don’t wanna talk about your past or what happened here, I could do some reading.”

The man shrugged. He seemed to have lost his attitude.

“So, you’re...Raphael?” asked Troy. 

“No. Abed. Abed Nadir.”

Troy smiled. “I’m Troy. Troy Barnes.”

“To answer your question from earlier,” said Abed, “I haven’t had much to do but watch whatever the neighbours are doing for the last hundred and sixty-ish years. At least we got television about seventy-five years ago. I really like what it’s done for the storytelling medium.”


	2. Chapter 2

As it turned out, Abed seemed even less committed to earning his own closure than Troy was. Abed remained invisible — or simply out of sight — most of the time, only deigning to make himself known when Troy did something he didn’t like: positioning the TV at a different angle when the living room furniture arrived, taking down the faded  _ Rocky _ poster in the upstairs hallway that Troy’d assumed a previous tenant had put up, even using shampoos of certain scents. Troy hadn’t even known that ghosts possessed such a strong sense of smell. 

The squirt of green apple shampoo Troy’s eye received for that particular sin had not been fun. 

Another week later, with a weirdly arranged living room and a  _ Rocky _ poster and a supply of fragrance-free shampoo, Troy knelt in front of the TV with a handful of DVDs he’d scrounged up from Walmart’s dollar bin as a peace offering. 

“...and this is  _ Thirteen Going on Thirty _ ,  _ Seventeen Again, Eighteen Again!, Vice-Versa,  _ and  _ Freaky Friday. _ ” Troy flipped through his stack of DVDs as he listed off the films. “So, can I buy a Blu-Ray? We can watch them together.”

Silence. 

“C’mon, buddy, it’s a yes or no question,” Troy coaxed.

Another beat with no response.

“Alright, well, no Blu-Ray, I guess,” said Troy, shoulders already drooping. He was halfway across the room when anger flared in his chest. “Actually, it’s not okay! I’ve been jumping over hoops all week for y—”

“You never said ‘it’s okay,’” droned Abed. No body materialized to accompany his voice.

“I—What?” Troy frowned.

“You said, ‘Actually, it’s not okay!’” Abed’s monotone voice climbed two octaves at his imitation of Troy. “It’s a common trope in climactic moments between two characters whose tension has been building for a while, but the logic doesn’t track unless you say ‘it’s okay’ before you say it’s not okay. Also, the idiom goes, ‘jumping through hoops,’ not ‘jumping over hoops.’”

“Okay, whatever, Abed! That’s not the point,” Troy huffed. “Look, can’t you come out and show yourself?”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Why not? Weren’t you the one who told me I had to help you find closure or whatever? How am I supposed to do that when all you do is avoid me and bang stuff around when you’re pissed off?” Troy didn’t know why, but his face began to heat and his eyes prickled behind his lids.

Abed paused. “I don’t know how this story goes.”

“What?”

Abed’s form shimmered into view, floating in the corner of the living room. His spindly legs dangled a foot off the ground and his arms hung limply at his sides. “I know stories, Troy. Even before I died, I specialized in them. And since my death, the stories have only ever gone one way: new hopefuls move into the house, I perform ghost antics, they get scared off and leave. It’s a classic paranormal movie, a classic urban legend.” Abed bobbed toward Troy. “But I don’t know how this story goes.”

Troy thought for a moment. “Well, in  _ Ghost _ , Patrick Swayze died saving his girlfriend from muggers and has to try to communicate with her, right? Is that what you need my help with? To connect with — with a lover so you can let go?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Abed’s ghost vanished in the time it took for Troy to blink — and Troy could tell that Abed wouldn’t answer if he called now.

Muttering under his breath, Troy stomped upstairs to his room. What was with this guy? How was Troy meant to help him get closure if he wouldn’t tell Troy anything about himself? He pushed open his bedroom door.

The wooden box of letters sat open on Troy’s dresser. Right. 

Troy flipped past the letter he’d already read and selected the next one. Unfolding it from the brittle envelope, Troy could almost feel time turning back, the ground shifting beneath him. As he held this artifact and read these words that belonged to a moment in time that had already breathed its last, that had already been forgotten but for the stale ink on this paper, Troy shuddered with the thought that maybe history was not a series of static events but a series of words and stories and tales on a page that was still unfolding, even now.

His stomach growled, shattering the moment. “After I read this stupid letter,” Troy promised his midsection.

_ June 23, 1886 _

_ Dear Raphael, _

_ Boston is cool. Cool, cool, cool. There is a breeze here, a breath of wind that nips at your heels and dances in your hair in a way the pregnant New York air does not. It is such a nice change from humid Port Vincent weather.  _

_ I strolled past your father’s law firm (Taylor & Sons, wasn’t it?) on my way to breakfast at a local cafe this morning — worry not; it was open, but he did not see me. His proximity to my hotel troubles me a little, but most of the conference takes place in the hotel ballroom and what reason would a local lawyer have to attend presentations and lectures on Ancient Greek literature or cross-cultural communication? I will be just fine, my love. _

_ I know you don’t like talking about him. I’ll move on.  _

_ I attended the panel on emerging media and women’s literature today — the one we were both interested in when the list of topics came out. It was just as provocative as we thought it would be. I will regale you with everything I have learned when I am home; you know that if I start writing about it now, I shan’t stop until I’ve filled ten pages with my crabbed writing. Tomorrow, I give my presentation on serial literature and participatory culture. Wish me luck, my love. _

_ Three days. It has been three long, arduous, dessicated days without your voice in my ear and your legs wrapped around my waist and your lips on my skin. I can hardly believe that I have spent twenty-four years of my life without knowing your touch. It seems so impossible now. I have experienced more freedom in the three years I have known you than I have in all my years as a single man. I would rather spend one night with you than face all the lifeless ages of the world alone.  _

_ You are all I’m thinking of, my love. _

_ Yours eternally, _

_ Abed Nadir _

Troy swiped hastily at the tear gathering in the corner of his eye and sat heavily on the edge of his bed. He’d read the first letter — he’d guessed at the nature of Abed and Raphael’s relationship — but he hadn’t had a moment to consider it in-depth, what with a ghost appearing in his bedroom and asking Troy to be his Whoopi Goldberg. 

Troy’s cheeks flamed as his eyes snagged on “ _ your legs wrapped around my waist and your lips on my skin _ ” again. Unbidden, an image of Abed locked in a heated embrace with a faceless man flashed to the forefront of Troy’s mind. He swallowed hard.

He drew out another envelope.

_ June 24, 1886 _

_ Dear Raphael, _

_ My presentation went about as well as you can expect. I didn’t think I’d be nervous, but I found my hands shaking slightly as I stood and walked over to the lectern through the silent rows of scholars all gazing upon me, anticipating my words of wisdom. I had half a mind to turn tail and run.  _

_ But then I remembered what you told me to do: take a deep breath, straighten my posture, and think about what Anatole Kuragin would do. I swear, my love, they were riveted. I looked into each audience member’s eyes in turn instead of staring at the back wall like I usually do. I delivered the presentation without any trouble.  _

_ There was a heckler who asked me a question about “my wife” during the question and answer session whom I believe knew full well that I am not married. I don’t know who he was or how he knew about my — our — lifestyle. I shut him down easily enough, but I must admit I am still a little shaken, especially with your father so near. _

_ I shall retire early tonight. I apologize for the brevity of this letter. Please know that you are in my thoughts, always. I pray that your nights have been restful and your days glad. _

_ Yours evermore, _

_ Abed Nadir _

Troy held the letter in rigid fingers. Between his old classmates’ gay jokes and the things the ministers at his parents’ Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation said, Troy had an idea of how people were treated for being anything other than straight in his own time. He tried not to think about that most of the time, let alone what it must have been like in a time before  _ Queer Eye For the Straight Guy _ and  _ But I’m a Cheerleader _ . 

Troy’s stomach gave another insistent grumble and gnawed at his insides. Giving in, he folded the letters back into the box, taking care to be gentle, and clattered down the stairs to the kitchen. Abed sat on the edge of the dining table, legs swinging lightly. 

“What are you making for dinner?” Abed asked.

“Uh, I dunno, nachos?” Troy still had cheese left over from pizza night.

“I don’t like nachos.”

“You can eat?” Troy asked incredulously. Had he been accidentally starving his ghost this entire time?

“No. Can you make buttered noodles?”

“Why do you want me to make them if you can’t eat them?”

“I’ll smell it.” Abed shot Troy a strange look, as if questioning Troy’s intelligence. “Buttered noodles are my favourite. You have the ingredients. I checked.”

“Okay, I guess.” Troy fired up the stove and put a pot of water on to boil. “Did they eat buttered noodles in your time?”

“Yes.”

The two of them stood in silence as the water steamed up. Troy’s mind reeled with questions that the letters had him wondering about. The man — ghost — who sat in front of him, now stretching his long legs out in front of him and inspecting the knobbly ankles that stuck out from the bottoms of his trousers, could not be more different from the man in the letters with his lilting affectations and palpable heart. 

“Who was Raphael?” Troy blurted. “Why isn’t he a ghost, too?”

Abed looked at Troy, then at the ceiling, and out the window above the sink. Dusk had set and dipped the house in a melancholy blue light. “He didn’t die here.”

The muscle in Abed’s bared neck tensed. His strong jaw ticked. Troy didn’t press any further. 

After fifteen minutes, Troy set a bowl of steaming buttered noodles on the table and Abed settled into the seat opposite Troy’s. Abed’s dark eyes followed as Troy dug into the noodles. Troy felt oddly self-conscious.

“You should buy the Blu-Ray,” Abed said.

Troy glanced up. Abed had an open face — a smooth brow, a high forehead, and wide eyes that were made for imploring. The effect only intensified when Abed tilted his head slightly at Troy’s look. Troy smiled. 

“Awesome,” he said. “My college friend Shirley gave me a copy of  _ Tower Heist _ I’ve been meaning to watch.”

“Now, wait a minute—”

~

Troy couldn’t help it. He had a naturally inquisitive mind. When he got a question in his head, it would rattle around in his brain banging cymbals and smashing plates until he got the answers he needed. 

According to the Port Vincent website, the local library had an archive of news, records, and documents all about the town’s history and any major events that had occurred here since its founding in the 1700s. Troy had sworn off libraries for good after his last final at Greendale Community College, but this was a special mission. 

It was late August now and though the days were still warm, heavy grey clouds hung in the sky today and a mournful breeze blew into the house when Troy opened the front door. He donned a light sweater and made his way to the library through the winding cobblestone roads, nodding to the neighbors who were beginning to recognize his face.

The Port Vincent Library cut an imposing figure at the end of Spigel Road, a historic orange-bricked building with a curling art-nouveau archway over the front porch. Inside, a young blond woman in horn-rimmed glasses and a blue sweater appliqued with a cat flaunting its X-shaped butthole sat at the front desk with a mug cupped in her hands. She looked up, a little dazed, and scrambled to her feet when Troy stepped in. 

“Hey there!” she shouted — no, really, shouted, in the middle of the library. “What can I do for you?”

Troy looked around, expecting angry professor types to glare around the bookshelves and shush her, but realized that he was the only patron here.

“I’m looking for any records from the late eighteen-hundreds on a fire that happened at a townhouse,” said Troy.

“Ah! It’s archives time!” The librarian clambered awkwardly over the desk in lieu of walking around it and led Troy deeper into the library, past the Classics area and the Young Adult shelves and the World History section. She opened the door to a small room with a desk and chair in the middle. “Have a seat, please. I’ll be right back with your materials.”

“Thanks, uh…”

“Britta.”

“Thanks, Britta.”

After a couple minutes in Britta’s absence, Troy wandered over to the shelves outside his little study room. This was the romance section, he realized, running his fingers over the spines of Austens and Brontes and Coles and Steels and pulling books out at random to check out their covers. Troy had never been much of a reader, but he did occasionally enjoy a shameful rom-com or drama under the covers at night when he had a particularly bad day — not that he’d ever allow anyone to know. Abed’s letters reminded him of the heroes in his favourite romantic movies, like Mr. Darcy, with their florid monologues: not necessarily the kind of man Troy aspired to be, but the kind of man he could...admire, for lack of a better word. 

Abed himself reminded Troy more of the scorned antagonists in those films. 

“Alright!” Britta exclaimed from a few inches behind Troy. 

Troy jumped and yelped when he dropped a thick hardcover on his foot.

“Oh, sorry,” Britta whispered. “I used to be a bartender, y’know, and I think I’ve been holding onto the habits I developed at that job (such as yelling everything — it’s loud in bars, y’know) because I was much better at that one than I am at this one and, I dunno, I was a psychology major, I have no idea why I decided to do a master’s in library science — maybe because I felt like I wasn’t good enough to pursue a career in therapy?” Her blue eyes widened into saucers. “Shoot! Sorry! That’s another habit I have — therapizing people — and sometimes I end up doing it to myself. Anyway, here are your records.”

Britta gestured for Troy to follow her back into the study room. She spread a few plastic-bound newspaper clippings, sheets of paper, and other documents on the table. 

“I found some news articles on fires that happened in the late eighteen-hundreds and I even hunted down other stuff I could find on people involved in those — homeowners, suspects, et cetera.”

“Yes. Yes! Thank you, Britta, this is exactly what I was looking for.” Troy rubbed his hands together and began sifting through the news clippings.

Britta’s answering beam split her face. She actually looked really beautiful like this, Troy thought. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said and departed.

The first news article detailed an arson case from 1895. The second one was about a gas fire that had burned down an entire house in 1867 — thankfully, the entire family had escaped with a few second-degree burns and their lives intact. 

The third article reported on a deadly fire that had occurred in a townhouse on what was then Cornelia Street in 1886. 

  1. That was the year those letters in 25 Cornelia Avenue were written. 



The sepia-toned photograph that accompanied the article depicted the charred skeleton of the townhouse, its front door a molten mess, its roof flapping in the wind, and its yard a heap of burnt rubble.

Troy’s fingers lingered over the plastic cover on top of the photo. He began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!  
> find me on tumblr @[sleepy-santiago](sleepy-santiago.tumblr.com) and scream about community with me


	3. Chapter 3

The rain started falling as Troy exited the library — great sheets of rain that drenched Troy and shook the tree branches and puddled in the gutters. By the time he unlocked the front door of 25 Cornelia Avenue and escaped into the house, his light grey sweater had gone thoroughly dark and his socks squelched inside his shoes.

Abed perched on the curved bottom of the wrought-iron stair bannister, hands folded in his lap. 

“Where did you go?” Abed asked.

Troy couldn’t look at Abed. Not without seeing flashes of fire climbing up the walls, smoke searing his skin, screams sounding from too far away. “Just...out.”

“What’s wrong?” Abed cocked his head. “You’re not making eye contact.”

For a ghost who’d gone over a hundred years without any conversations with another person, Abed was infuriatingly observant. 

“It’s nothing, Abed. I’m just gonna go take a shower.”

Abed floated after Troy as he traipsed up the stairs. “If I’m gonna find closure, we’re gonna have to be more open with each other. Emotional breakthroughs and all that. Did you see something that spooked you? Besides a ghost in your house, I mean.”

“God, Abed!” Troy whipped around. Abed stopped short, his face inches away from Troy’s, eyes wide. “I don’t think me opening up to you is the point of your closure. I mean — were you — were you ever gonna tell me about what happened in the fire?”

Abed’s face shut off. “You went snooping,” he said, ice-cold. 

“You wouldn’t tell me anything!”

“It’s my private business,” Abed hissed. 

Troy’s heart sank to his sodden ankles. But despite his guilt, Troy knew that Abed was deflecting. He shook his head. Droplets of rain slid down his neck and under his collar.

“Abed, I think you know what your unfinished business is,” he said. “What you still haven’t let go of. You can’t keep denying and avoiding it. It’s been over a century.”

“Well, forgive me if I’m not ready to talk about my violent death with the random guy who moved into my house,” Abed sneered. He disappeared. 

Troy didn’t cry in the shower. He didn’t. He dabbed some eye cream over his lids to mitigate the (rain-induced) puffiness and clattered downstairs for some evening screentime. Just to spite Abed, Troy slid the  _ Tower Heist _ disk into the DVD player and settled back into his new armchair with a contented sigh. 

He knew more than felt the presence beside him. Even before Abed spoke, even without seeing his body, Troy sensed his company. 

“I’ll sit through  _ Tower Heist _ if we watch  _ Inspector Spacetime _ next,” said Abed’s disembodied voice.

“Deal.” Troy glanced in Abed’s general direction. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Yeah. But I don’t wanna be alone right now.”

Troy paused the movie. “You don’t have to be alone ever again, Abed. When I said I wasn’t leaving, I meant it.”

Abed was quiet, but Troy felt the goosebumps rise when Abed settled against his arm. Troy pressed “Play” again.

“You’re still not off the hook, you know,” said Troy after a moment. “We’re gonna talk about...it...eventually.”

Abed just sighed, a gust that brushed against Troy’s cheek.

~

Troy got the idea while he pulled out the weeds in 25 Cornelia Avenue’s small garden. He’d gotten some packets of tomato, arugula, and squash seeds from the local market last weekend, and once he cleared out and cleaned up and resoiled the garden, he planned on going back for some herbs and other seedlings. 

Gardening was a process — an arduous process that took many days and plenty of sweat and quite a few backaches. But Troy found that dedicating himself to finishing one little project every day eased it a bit. On Monday, he’d raked up all the dead leaves and debris. On Tuesday, he’d trimmed the tree that encroached over the fence of his neighbour’s garden. On Wednesday, he’d cleaned out the flowerbeds. 

On Thursday, he emerged from the house with a trowel and a pair of tough rubber gloves, ready to weed the southwest corner of the garden. Abed sat beneath the shade of the apple tree by the fence and watched as Troy strained at the stubborn crabgrass. 

Troy paused to wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He gave Abed a considering look. 

“Would it help if you told me little bits at a time?” Troy asked. 

Abed looked quizzically back at him. 

“I know it hurts for you to talk about what happened,” Troy explained. “What if you just did it in little chunks? You can tell me one thing that happened each day.”

“I guess that could work,” Abed said slowly. 

“Do you wanna start now?”

Abed remained silent. Troy turned back to the crabgrass, deciding not to push and prod the ghost any more than he already had these past few days. He tugged at the root of the spiky green plant. A part of the root came loose, spraying a bit of dirt into the air. It was really digging its heels in. With a final heave, the weed came free. Troy flung it into the bucket with a satisfied sigh. 

“We met at a party thrown by his father’s law firm,” Abed said. 

Troy stilled and turned to face Abed, arm propped against his knee.

“He was pretending to run the coat check just to mess with and avoid the guests. I kept escaping to talk to him and complained about his overbearing father to him all night, and he didn’t bother telling me that he was his son until the end of the night.” Abed shook his head with a closed-lipped smile. “I’d never met anyone like Raphael before.”

Troy’s lips quirked. “Is that when you knew you loved him?”

“When can you know that you love somebody?” Abed turned his gaze upon Troy. “When do you draw the line between affection and love? Between one lingering touch and another? Between an inane inside joke and the laugh that comes afterward? Between one heartbeat and the next?”

Troy quieted. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Abed returned to staring up at the dry, fruitless branches of the apple tree.

By the time the sun sank below the city’s roofs and the garden lit up in a fragrant and golden dusk, Troy had weeded and tilled the flowerbeds. The loamy smell of soil hung in the air and gnats flitted about in the dying light. 

Tomorrow, Troy would begin planting.

~

Abed took to the daily confessional.

“His father wanted him to marry a woman named Mariah,” he said in the glare of the morning sun as Troy sowed the tomato seeds.

“What did Raphael do?”

“He ran away to New York with me.”

~

When Troy returned from the Saturday market with a pot of basil: “Raphael’s father started having suspicions about us. He didn’t believe that we were just friends and roommates like we told him.”

As Troy watched  _ Cougarton Abbey _ on his laptop in bed with Abed curled up on the pillow beside him: “Raphael corresponded with his father regularly, trying to put his mind at ease. Told him truths and lies. He told him that we hosted a book club with friends from the university where I studied (which was true). And that Raphael had a steady job as an assistant at the town newspaper (he didn’t).”

As Troy chopped cilantro in the kitchen in the soft pink twilight: “Raphael finally decided to just lie to his father and say that he had moved out and was living in a bachelor apartment in town. He hoped it would get his father to leave us alone. We used our friend Annie’s address for the letters to keep the lie up. That was the summer that I — that I left to attend the conference back in Boston.”

Troy regarded Abed. The rosy light shone through Abed’s translucent form and turned him into a sunset of his own. It was easy, in this moment, to admire the soft curl of Abed’s hair and the line of his throat.

“Are you ready to talk about what happened next?” Troy asked.

Abed swallowed and looked away. “How much do you know?”

“I think you should tell me,” Troy said softly.

“I took a hansom cab from the train station when I arrived back in Port Vincent,” said Abed, haltingly. “As we drew nearer to Cornelia Street, I started hearing it. Yelling, distressed voices, clamouring. Then I smelled it. Hot smoke in the air like a summer barbecue. The horse pulling the carriage whinnied — it didn’t want to go any further — but the driver urged it forward. 

“We pulled up to find my home up in flames. Great billowing plumes of smoke rose from the downstairs window. Fire crackled in the heart of the house. ‘Where’s Raphael?’ I kept screaming, but nobody seemed to know. The firefighters had just trundled up in their boxy steam fire engine and were unravelling the hose.

“I ran into the house. The acrid smoke filled my lungs and my eyes watered so badly I couldn’t keep them open. I just stumbled around blindly, feeling my way through and burning my hands on the hot walls and doorknobs. I called out Raphael’s name until my throat was so raw from smoke and exertion, I wasn’t making any noise anymore. 

“Then I tripped over something — a soft heap on the floor. I’d found him. I could barely stand at that point. I don’t know how I dragged him through the flames to the front door, but I did. I rolled his body out onto the grass first. 

“I was about to crawl out myself when the ceiling of the entrance gave. It’s the last thing I remember — seeing Raphael’s eyes blink blearily open from a few metres away, catching his gaze and wanting to say something reassuring, before the ceiling split and something hit my head. 

“I assume I was knocked out and buried under the debris, and consumed by the fire before the firefighters could put it out.” Abed focused intently on his wrought hands.

“And Raphael?” Troy’s voice sounded faraway and unfamiliar to himself.

“He lived,” Abed said shortly. “His father moved him back to Boston. He married a young woman and probably had children with her. I don’t know much else.”

“What started the fire?” asked Troy. The rosy glow had diminished into a deep blue. 

Abed levelled his gaze at Troy. “Did you read my letter from June the twenty-sixth?”

~

_ June 26, 1886 _

_ Dear Raphael, _

_ I only received your letter today. It distresses me greatly to hear that your father has apparently been informed of our still-ongoing relationship — even more so to read of your suspicions that he has spies in Port Vincent poking around for him.  _

_ He cannot do anything to you while he is here in Boston and still believes that you live at a completely different address. As far as he knows, I am the only one in the townhouse on Cornelia Street. From what you have written in your letter, it seems as though the only thing he knows is that you and I may be less platonically involved than he had previously thought. _

_ Do not despair, my love, I will be home in less than three days and we will muddle through this.  _

_ Yours unceasingly, _

_ Abed Nadir _

“Raphael’s father had the house burned down,” Troy stated more than asked. 

The moon had risen and now washed Troy’s bedroom in silver. Abed sat cross-legged atop Troy’s dresser, peering at Troy as he read the letter. 

“I’ve run the scenario in my head a thousand times over,” said Abed. “It’s the most logical explanation. Raphael would never have left the stove or oven on — he was the one who always went on about how irresponsible it was.”

“Yet the fire department concluded that it was most likely a cooking fire,” Troy remembered. “Raphael denied it, too, in the newspaper article.”

Troy’s heart ached. Looking at Abed, he now saw the fragility in his thin shoulders, the tremor in his long fingers, the weight upon his bowed neck. Troy couldn’t imagine being alone for so long after such a death, hiding in the vents and drifting around the empty house — even the thought of it was enough to haunt him.

“So, that’s it,” said Abed. “A typical narrative would dictate that my closure could come with me avenging my death or, as you put it, reconnecting with my lover. But it’s too late for that now.”

“Screw that.” Troy jumped to his feet. 

Abed frowned. “What?”

“Screw closure!” Troy said. “Maybe there’s a way for you to move on from here into the afterlife or whatever, but if you haven’t found it in a hundred and twenty-something years, I probably can’t. What if, instead, we make your haunting as awesome as humanly possible?” If Troy had to die in this house to make it happen, he would make sure that Abed was never lonely again.

Abed sat up taller. His eyes grew rounder. “Antics. Capers. Hijinks.”

“Yeah!”

Abed hopped off the dresser and paced the room. “We’ll need candles. Music. Guests. How many friends do you have in Port Vincent? I used to be really good at inviting people, but obviously that’s not an option for us.”

Troy stopped paying attention as Abed continued developing and gesticulating with his large hands. As time wore on, and the hardened layers that had built up over the decades fell away, Troy realized that he saw more and more of the Abed from the letters in the Abed in front of him: the dedication and drive in his animated hands and peaked eyebrows, the eloquence and intellect in his sharp wit and references, the softness and grace in his pensive eyes and curved lips. It was like seeing a fictional character come to life, only this was real. 

“Well?” Abed said. He’d stopped pacing to pin Troy with an unimpressed look.

“Huh?” said Troy.

Abed huffed. “You’re gonna have to keep up if we’re gonna pull this off, Troy. Listen up.” Spreading his palms, he began to outline his plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading <3  
> follow me on tumblr @[sleepy-santiago](sleepy-santiago.tumblr.com)!  
> your comments and kudos are so appreciated i love u all


	4. Chapter 4

“How do I look?” Troy turned from the bathroom mirror to Abed, who languished on the porcelain edge of the clawfoot tub with his limbs splayed in oddly photogenic angles.

Abed’s eyes raked over Troy’s outfit. He tilted his head and lingered on Troy’s throat for just a beat before returning his gaze to Troy’s eyes.

“Good,” Abed finally said.

They nodded to each other and Troy exited the bathroom. His footsteps resounded in the shadowy hallway. He took his place standing at the head of the dining table, adjusted his ascot, and straightened the lapels of his blazer. 

“I’ve gathered you all here today,” Troy said gravely, “to discuss the haunting of twenty-five Cornelia Avenue.”

“I thought this was a dinner party,” said Britta. She had on a dark purple sweater today, with a bespectacled black cat on the front and the words “I’M NOT ANTI-SOCIAL, I’M ANTI-STUPID” surrounding the cat.

“It is. He’s clearly trying to go for a spooky haunted house prank thing,” said Jeff Winger, local defense attorney, without looking up from his phone. “If you wanted to bond with your neighbours, you could have just asked us out for drinks, buddy.”

“You have drinks in front of you,” Troy pointed out, indicating the glasses of chocolate milk he’d poured for everyone.

Buzz Hickey, the town coroner and Troy’s next-door neighbour, cast an unimpressed glance over the candles flickering on the table. “This is what you call a haunted house?”

Losing grip on his character a little, Troy rebutted, “Well, what would  _ you _ —”

“I would hire voice actors, install a complex pulley and lever system that allows me to move certain furniture in the room from my seat at the table, and take improv classes for at least a month,” drawled Hickey. “But that’s not the point. The point is that we’re not here to be pranked.”

“Yes,” agreed Frankie Dart, MBA (Troy wasn’t sure what she did exactly, but she lived a few doors down and introduced herself as “Frankie Dart, MBA”). “Let’s put these fire hazards away and have a nice, calm meal.”

“No one touch the candles,” Troy ordered, remembering himself. “And there’s no prank at work here, um, honoured guests. What I’m telling you is true. If the house wasn’t haunted, how do you explain that?” He gestured at Britta’s plate. 

The other guests blinked, nonplussed. 

“Hey!” Britta frowned. “Who took my chicken?”

“You probably just ate it and forgot,” Jeff grumbled.

“I live in New York,” Britta shrilled. “I know a theft when I see one!”

“Are you saying that all New Yorkers are thie—”

“—dinner hasn’t started, and it’s frankly pretty rude to eat—”

“—and we all live in New York—”

An explosive burst of static silenced the dinner guests. All eyes were drawn to the boxy shape beneath the white sheet in the corner of the living room. 

Troy put a finger to his lips and tiptoed over to the white shape. He grasped a corner of the sheet in his hand. With a flourish, he whipped the sheet off.

“It’s just a TV,” said Jeff, relaxing his grip on the steak knife he’d raised.

“What was that?” Britta breathed, wide-eyed. “And why is it so cold all of a sudden?” She rubbed her arms.

“Just a bit of static,” said Frankie, flattening the stray hairs that had flown up when she’d jumped earlier.

“Or was it?” said Troy.

The TV gave another screech and its screen glowed black, the way old TVs did when you turned them off.

“Who’s there?” Hickey growled. “Show yourself or I’ll come over there and punch you in the throat.”

“Can you punch ghosts in the throat?” Britta whispered loudly.

“Everyone, relax,” said Jeff. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. This is just some stupid trick that—”

Britta screamed. A flaming head with burning red eyes had appeared in the TV screen, screeching bloody murder. The high-pitched shriek crescendoed and filled the room. Even Troy, who’d seen this coming, clapped his hands to his ears and glanced at the glasses on the table, half-expecting them to fissure and burst.

“O-oh my god, what is that?!” Frankie shot out of her chair.

Troy fumbled for the white sheet and threw it back over the TV. The shriek cut off. 

“Now do you believe me?!” he said.

“Um,  _ no _ ,” said Jeff, holding up a rattled finger. “That was  _ clearly _ just a—” 

“Okay,” said Hickey, pointing. “That’s not normal.”

The white sheet draped over the TV had begun to dance — the corners lifted and swayed, ripples and bumps rising and falling like waves in a white sea.

“Troy, stop it!” said Britta. 

“I’m not doing anything.”

The sheet rose from a round, head-shaped bit in the centre as if someone underneath it had begun standing. The sheet glided into the air like a Halloween bedsheet ghost. Two white fabric paws reached toward the guests. The sheet moaned and drifted toward the table.

Everyone screamed. 

“Get back! Get back!” Jeff herded everyone out into the entrance hall and around into the living room.

“Troy, turn whatever that is off!” cried Frankie.

Britta screamed again. “It’s coming!” She pointed at the white shape floating toward them from the kitchen. She broke into a run and disappeared up the stairs.

Jeff swore and ran after her. Everyone else followed him. 

The upstairs hallway was dark, silent, and empty.

“Where’s Britta?” Frankie whispered.

“Probably just hiding in a corner somewhere,” said Jeff through gritted teeth. 

A short creak sounded from somewhere down the hallway.

Hickey charged toward the sound and vanished into the shadows.

“Do you guys feel that?” Frankie shivered and touched the back of her neck. “It’s like...a cold spot.” She stepped to the left and then back to the right. “It’s only in this one spot.”

“Okay, let’s just find Britta and Hickey and get this stupid night over with,” growled Jeff. 

Jeff, Frankie, and Troy advanced down the hallway. Another ominous creak — this time, closer.

“It came from over here.” Jeff shoved open the door to the guest bedroom and was met with a blood-curdling shriek.

“Jesus, Britta!” Jeff reached into the room, grabbed Britta’s upper arm, and hauled her to her feet.

“We thought you were him!” Britta flailed.

“We?”

Hickey emerged from deeper in the room, brandishing a dagger. “There’s someone up here,” he said. He rotated on the spot, scanning the room.

“There’s no one—” Jeff fell silent. His eyes, no longer on Britta or Hickey, raised to look at something above their heads. A strange orange glow dawned on his face.

Hovering at the ceiling was the flaming head from the television, red eyes fixed on the group, maw stretched wide in a silent cackle. 

Everyone screamed. They scrambled to squeeze out the door of the bedroom at the same time, which resulted in no one getting out.

“One at a time!” Jeff barked, pushing Britta out, then Frankie, Hickey, Troy, and himself.

Back downstairs in the kitchen, the bedsheet ghost bobbed at the edge of the table. Jeff stretched his arms to either side, fencing the others in behind him.

Jeff’s steak knife floated off his plate. Its stainless steel edge glinted sharp in the candlelight. Britta whimpered.

The knife descended upon the round pound cake at the centre of the table. The guests watched, speechless, as it cut a square slice out of the middle of the cake.

“Seriously?” said Hickey.

The sheet dropped, shapeless, to the floor.

“... So, who’s still up for drinks?” asked Frankie.

Troy lingered in the dining room while the rest of the group filed out and huddled on the lawn, waiting for him. 

Nobody was there to see the white sheet take on its ghostly shape again — nor were they there to see Troy and the sheet ghost exchange an esoteric handshake, his brown human hand clapping against a white fabric paw.

~

Troy rolled onto his side with a sleepy sigh and blinked awake to a pair of round brown eyes staring back at him. Troy gazed blearily at Abed, who lay curled with his head pillowed on his translucent arm, for a few moments before his brain remembered how to work his mouth.

“Were you watching me while I slept? Kinda creepy, dude.” Troy smacked his lips and winced at the musty taste of his own mouth. At least he didn’t have a hangover.

“You don’t seem creeped out.”

“I guess ‘cause I know you,” said Troy, “and this stuff’s kind of normal to me now.” He rolled onto his other side, tossed back the duvet, and swung his legs out of the bed.

“You do know me,” said Abed. “You know a lot about me. But I don’t know a lot about you.” He propped his head up on his fist and watched as Troy sauntered to the wardrobe across the room, scratching his lower back and exposing a strip of dark brown skin there.

“You live with me, dude, you know plenty about me.” Troy bent and rummaged through a stack of folded t-shirts.

“Well, sure, I know that you’re bad at cooking eggs but good at cooking Doritos for some reason. I know that you wash your hair once a week. And I know that you talk about donuts and self-cannibalism in your sleep sometimes. But I don’t know anything about your life.”

Troy tugged his Greendale Community College t-shirt over his head, spine undulating in the midmorning sunlight. “Well, what do you wanna know?”

Abed looked away and shrugged. “I’ve talked to you a lot about my story. I wanna know your story.”

“You know what I wanna know? What happened last night.”

Abed made a face.

“What was that cake thing at the end?”

“You know how I can’t touch or move things unless I put a lot of effort into it,” said Abed.

“Mm-hmm.”

“I hadn’t tried in a long time. I guess I miscalculated how taxing it would be for me. The sheet thing was already draining me and picking up the knife, even more so.” Abed flopped onto his back. “So I just did what I could with the time I had.”

“Cut a piece of cake?” There was a trace of a smile in Troy’s voice.

Abed frowned. “Cut a square piece out of a round cake,” he corrected, as if that was all the explanation needed. 

“Alright, buddy.” Troy turned around, now dressed in jeans and a yellow sweater. 

“You did a good job rigging the AC to make cold spots,” said Abed.

“Got one thing out of AC repair school, I guess.”

Abed trailed after Troy as he descended the stairs. “So you went to AC repair school? Is that part of your keg flip story?”

“My keg flip story?”

“The one you started talking about the first time I let you see me. You said it was a long story and that it was how you ended up here.”

Troy told Abed the story as he steeped tea, toasted bread, and scrambled eggs. He microwaved a bowl of buttered noodles for Abed. Sweet-smelling steam rose from Troy’s mug and the sizzle of the pan filled the kitchen. 

Troy told Abed about high school, winning prom king, the college recruiters, his anxiety and his fake-out, his parents’ disappointment, their falling out, his lonely community college years, and the cult-like air-conditioning repair program he was recruited into. Abed only interrupted once to remind Troy to turn off the stove before he burnt the eggs.

“Can I ask you something, too?” Troy said when he finished his story. “Something personal?”

Abed looked expectantly back at him.

Troy hesitated. “Wasn’t it isolating, being in a relationship with a man in that time?”

“We both had to sever our relationships with our parents,” said Abed, “but we were family to each other. We didn’t need anything else. Besides, the friends we made in Port Vincent were open-minded. We didn’t have to hide from them. Annie, like I told you before, helped us to lie to Raphael’s father.” 

“How did you know that you...you know…”

“Liked men?” Abed smiled wryly.

Troy inclined his head.

“I didn’t really think of it that way. I just knew that I was in love with him.”

“But how do you know that?” Troy asked. “I mean, I know you said all that stuff about not knowing where to draw the line. But how...how do you know that you, like,  _ like _ -like a guy and not just  _ like _ him?” He’d never been able to wrap his head around that.

“It’s quite similar to what teen movies say it’s like,” said Abed. “You wanna spend all your time with them. You wanna go out of your way to do things for them. You wanna...you wanna know everything about them.” He tilted his head. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

Troy munched on his toast, thoughtful. “I’ve kissed a girl. At a party. It was...damp.”

“So...no.”

“I’ve had a girlfriend, too,” said Troy, a touch defensively. “She was my prom queen.”

“What did you do together?”

“... Won prom king and queen?”

“Other than that.”

“Well, we kind of decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend because we were prom king and queen. We took a lot of pictures together. She took me to Lowe's once before she had to leave town for college. I think she’s a lesbian now, though.”

“I think she was always a lesbian,” said Abed gently.

~

25 Cornelia Avenue was unrecognizable. The brown bricks, bleached and scrubbed, shone like copper. The garden, weeded and mowed, flourished with inch-tall seedlings. The interior, painted and furnished, opened like a flower in bloom. In the act of making his home, Troy had found a gradual yielding of himself to this building in a way that he never imagined he could have found in an inanimate object.

Despite the townhouse’s outward beauty, it remained the subject of furtive glances and whispered rumours thanks to Troy and Abed. The dinner party might have fallen through in the end, but it had done the trick — Frankie got a glazed look in her eye whenever Troy brought that night up, Hickey grumbled about Troy trampling his gardenias and went back inside (which in Hickey’s language signalled unease), and Britta and Jeff flat out refused to come back to Troy’s.

Troy and Abed worked hard to keep appearances up. Abed made spooky noises — rattling around in the pipes, wailing in the vents — and his ghostly silhouette behind the gauzy curtains in the windows had frightened more than one nocturnal dog-walker away. The strobe light Troy installed to create the illusion of flickering lights helped matters along. Sometimes when the mailman knocked or Girl Scouts came by peddling cookies, Abed opened the door, invisible, before Troy came downstairs. 

“How can you like living in that place?” Britta asked one day as they strolled down Main Street, checking out all the vintage shops for Britta and all the candy stores for Troy. “I mean — don’t get me wrong!” Her eyes grew wide behind her thick glasses, the way they always did when she thought she was offending someone. “I love what you’ve done with the place. It looks beautiful. But, and pardon my French, it’s fucking creepy.”

Troy shrugged, feeling a little smug at his and Abed’s job well done. “It just...it just feels like home. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like, I’ve lived in a lot of homes — too many, in fact. But I’ve never settled down to carve out a home for myself, if that makes sense. And I’ve done that here.”

“I get that,” said Britta. “I never felt at home in the house where I grew up. It was big and well-furnished and pretty, but never home. The first time I ever felt at home was in the leaky studio apartment I rented above a Dildopolis in Queens. Because  _ I _ paid the rent,  _ I _ bought the crappy electric fan that did nothing during the ninety-degree summers, and  _ I _ dealt with the black mold problem in the bathroom.”

They shared a grin.

“But, still,” Britta went on. “Your house is...literally haunted.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Troy, unwrapping the green apple lollipop he’d bought at Sweets n’ Stuff a few blocks back. He smiled, thinking of the bag of sugary treats in his backpack and already looking forward to showing Abed the wonders of modern candy. 

“Well, how about an excuse to get you out of that house for a night or two?” said Britta. “I have this friend, Paige, who’s new in town like you. She’s single.” Britta waggled her eyebrows.

“Mm-hmm?” Troy sucked on the lollipop, already distracted by the stationery shop he saw up ahead.

“So I was thinking, you and her could get drinks at Skeeper’s Friday night…”

“Friday night?” Troy frowned. “No, that’s movie night. Can’t.”

Britta wilted. “You’d rather watch movies alone in your creepy house than get drinks with my hot friend?”

“Well...yeah.” Troy pulled the lollipop from his mouth. “Honestly, I’d rather watch movies with...by myself in my creepy house than do anything else.” 

And he would, wouldn’t he? Abed’s presence made everything a thousand times better, from movies to cooking to brushing his teeth. Troy had done more and laughed more and felt more since Abed had popped into his life than he ever had before. He loved falling asleep and waking up with Abed there to accompany him. He loved pranking his neighbours and pretending to be movie characters with Abed. He loved hearing Abed’s voice and listening to him talk about nineteenth century literature and twentieth century cinema for hours and hours. He loved Abed.

He loved...Abed.

“Troy?” Britta waved a hand in front of Troy’s face. They had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Troy stared into space, lollipop hanging from his mouth. “Troy, buddy?”

The lollipop fell from Troy’s lips and landed on the sidewalk with a  _ thwack _ , stick in the air. “Gotta go,” Troy breathed. “Sorry.”

He turned and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what i'm doing sorry for the brainrot


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks y'all for your patience while i got this chapter up.

When Troy ascended the stairs and turned into the doorway of his bedroom, Abed sat cross-legged on the floor with his back to Troy. The familiar faded wooden letter box was open in front of him. 

Abed held a letter in one hand; his other hand traced the words on the page with a reverent idleness. Troy watched as Abed’s translucent fingers lingered on the name at the top of the letter:  _ Dear Raphael _ . 

Troy swallowed and shifted backward. His foot pressed against a creaky floorboard.

Abed turned. His eyes widened and a guilty look settled over his features. “Troy. I thought you’d be out longer.”

Troy shook his head. “Just, ah, forgot something. I’ll — I’ll let you have your privacy.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that crept into his voice at the end of his sentence. 

“Wait, Troy—”

Breath barely recovered from the run home, Troy broke into another sprint — this time, taking him far away. 

The rhythmic pounding of his feet against the pavement and of his heartbeat in his ears — one-two, one-two — had always been an escape for Troy: as a child, running from his Nana’s switch; as a teenager, spending sunsets with his team on the Riverside High field instead of at home with his rowing parents; as a college student, sprinting under the stars in the track field instead of studying for his exams. 

He hadn’t gone on a run since he’d moved here, Troy realized as his legs propelled him past the library and around the corner of L Street, where most of the town’s bars, pubs, and nightlife resided. Maybe he’d just been too busy restoring the house. Maybe he just hadn’t had time to run.

Or maybe he’d forgotten what it felt like to need to run.

He’d forgotten too much in the last few weeks. He’d forgotten how he used to talk circles around himself in the bath, because now Abed was always there with a comeback or a retort. He’d forgotten cup noodle dinners and beef jerky breakfasts, because now he liked to spend time cooking fragrant meals so he and Abed could linger and talk in the kitchen until the sun set. He’d forgotten loneliness. And he’d forgotten that he would soon feel it again when Abed drifted away to the other side of the veil and left the living world behind for good. 

Because Troy couldn’t allow himself to keep Abed anchored here out of his own selfish love — not when Troy would inevitably wither away in a few decades. He would not become just another person who abandoned Abed in the end. 

Troy would simply have to help Abed find his closure and help him to move on before Troy could break his own heart any further. 

His chest clenched again when he remembered the tender way Abed held the letters, the way he touched Raphael’s name. Abed was clearly still in love. Still stuck on the phantom of a lover. He would never love Troy back, and the sooner Troy accepted that, the sooner he could help Abed.

Troy’s feet had taken him to the more divey end of L Street. He stood in front of Skeeper’s with its faded wooden sign and greasy windows.

He might as well.

Troy pushed through the doorway. Seated at the bar, nursing three fingers of scotch, was Jeff Winger.

“Troy?” Jeff turned around and appraised Troy. The smile on Jeff’s face wavered. “Are you good?”

Troy traipsed over to the bar and slumped onto the stool beside Jeff’s. “I don’t know. My brain hurts. And my lungs are burning and my heart feels like it’s gonna burst out of my chest like in the cartoons.”

“That might be because you look like you just ran ten miles.”

“I guess.” Troy ordered a seven-and-seven and Jeff wrinkled his nose but didn’t comment. “Jeff, have you ever been in love?”

Jeff coughed. “It’s three o’clock on a Tuesday.”

“You can’t be in love at three o’clock on a Tuesday?”

“If it were up to me, no.”

“Jeff,” Troy whined.

Jeff heaved a deep sigh. “Fine. You wanna know what I think about love? Here’s my elevator pitch. Love is power. Love is indenturing yourself to someone else. Love is building your life on their trust and relying on them to not pull it out from under your feet. You’re better off not subjecting yourself to it.”

“Geez. You really think you can just…” Troy’s face scrunched. “...keep yourself from falling in love?”

“I don’t think.” Jeff took a gulp of his scotch. “I know. I haven’t been in love with a woman since Marissa Flores in seventh grade.” He said it with a proud puff to his chest, like a Junior Woodchuck listing the badges on his sash.

“Just women? Not men?” asked Troy.

Jeff choked on his drink. “ _ No _ . Not that I have anything against that.”

“I doubt it,” Britta said snidely.

Jeff and Troy began protesting before they did a double take at Britta’s appearance behind the bar. She polished a wine glass with a serene expression on her face. Her cat sweater today depicted a calico holding a mug of coffee with the word “Purrista” in block letters beneath it.

“I started taking on-call shifts here,” Britta explained. “The library’s so dead I’m not getting enough hours and the tips here are good. I’m only here for evening shifts, though.”

“What did you mean, you doubt it?” Jeff demanded.

“Abed would call this a continuity issue,” Troy murmured.

Jeff and Britta paused in their bickering. 

“Who?” said Jeff.

“Never mind.”

They resumed their argument, which quickly delved into Freudian psychology and internalized homophobia. 

“All I’m saying,” Britta finally bit out, slamming Jeff’s third glass of scotch down in front of him, “is that no straight man looks at another man the way you look at Rich.”

“With deep suspicion and boiling hatred?” Jeff spluttered, turning red.

“With heart eyes, motherfucker.”

“Whatever.” Jeff turned back to Troy. “The point is, why would you ever want to shackle yourself like that? You’re young, you’re attractive—” Britta snorted pointedly “—and you have the whole of Port Vincent at your fingertips.”

Troy frowned. “Are you sure that’s what love feels like? Imprisonment and...shackles?”

“Sometimes.” Britta nodded sagely. “But not in the way Jeff means.”

“Huh?” Troy blinked at Britta.

Jeff snapped his fingers in front of Troy’s face. “Ignore her.”

Troy shook his head to clear it. “I’m new at this,” he said, “but to me...I don’t know. I feel freer with him. Even though I can’t always see him and can’t touch him, talking to him makes me feel more like myself than I have in my entire life.”

Britta made a sympathetic face. “Long-distance?”

“Uh, yeah, something like that.” Troy silently thanked the stars that Britta had provided a cover for him — God knew how bad he was at lying.

“Troy,” said Britta, aiming her big round eyes at him. “It sounds like you really love him. Don’t let him go.”

“It’s not that simple. You know, uh, long-distance,” Troy flubbed. “And he’s in...he was in a relationship he isn’t over.”

“That’s tough,” Britta tsked. 

“See?” Jeff waved his glass in Troy’s direction and the amber liquid inside sloshed dangerously close to the rim. “That’s what I’m talking about. Shackles.”

“I’ll put you in shackles,” Britta growled under her breath.

“Do it. I dare you.” Jeff glared at her. Britta glared back, and for half a second it looked as if they were beginning to lean toward each other over the polished mahogany bartop.

“Okay,” Troy said loudly, breaking the moment. “Then what do you suggest I do?”

Jeff shrugged and looked down into his swirling drink. “Push it down. Deep into a box inside you. Lock it up and throw away the key.”

~

Troy tried. He really did. He looked away when he caught himself staring at Abed; he stopped laughing at Abed’s jokes at the dining table; he stopped asking Abed to stay beside him while he slept. He still put on movies for Abed in the evenings, but instead of watching them with Abed, Troy left the ghost sitting cross-legged on the living room floor and went out. The hightop table in the corner at Skeeper’s became Troy’s and Jeff’s and Britta’s, and Troy even met Britta’s friend, Paige. 

Upon finding out that they both liked beer, Paige brought Troy to a beer garden in the next town. The patio overlooked the bay with its rippling waters and sunset glow. Strings of fairy lights lit the rustic wooden tables, the soft brown leaves of the trees surrounding the restaurant, and Paige’s curtain of blond hair. It was charming and romantic and perfect and it would have remained so if Paige hadn’t choked on her ale because Troy blurted in the middle of the evening: “I’m pretty sure I’m gay.”

He didn’t feel as bad after Paige finished coughing and confessed that she could relate to him more than she would have liked to admit.

“I really just agreed to hang out with you because it made Britta so happy,” she said, twiddling the handle of her mug. “I was gonna tell you that I had fun but that we should part as friends after tonight.”

Troy bit his lip. “We could keep hanging out as friends. If you were up for it. I kinda need a distraction these days anyway, and you seem cool.”

Paige glanced over at the streak of red sunlight still clinging to the waters of the bay. “I’d like that.”

Between drinks with his friends on Friday nights, dragging Paige to the movies, and being dragged to Paige’s poetry slams, Troy spent more time outside than he did at home. He saw Abed for a few minutes in the mornings before he left, and Abed always sat on the bannister to await Troy’s return in the evenings, but Troy thought that his efforts to wean himself off Abed were seeing success at last. Sure, Paige didn’t like to trash-talk during movies, and sure, Jeff and Britta seemed more interested in being right than having fun most of the time, but Troy’s new friends weren’t supposed to replace Abed, just distract him from the ghost.

So when Paige invited him on a weekend trip to New York City, Troy was ecstatic. Just a little more time away from Abed would be the true test of Troy’s progress. He started packing days beforehand.

“You’re leaving,” said Abed’s flat voice.

Troy looked up from the suitcase he mulled over. “Just for the weekend.”

“Where are you going?”

“Paige has a work thingy. A convention. Not the fun kind,” Troy hastened to add. “I asked her if we should plan costumes and apparently it’s some boring academic convention about English or something.”

“You’re avoiding me.”

Troy froze. 

Abed shimmered into view in front of Troy’s bed. “I’m not stupid, Troy. You’re trying to spend less time with me. You don’t look at me or talk to me or ask to do things with me anymore.”

Troy swallowed. “It’s only for a little while, Abed. I’ll be back after the weekend and...and then I’ll be able to help you find your closure.”

Abed’s brow furrowed. “You said you wouldn’t. September the second, you said, ‘If you haven’t found it in a hundred and twenty-something years, I probably can’t. What if, instead, we make your haunting as awesome as humanly possible?’”

“God, I know, Abed, but I won’t be here forever!” Troy threw down the t-shirt he was holding. 

Abed’s dark eyes bore into Troy’s.

“I can’t stay with you forever, Abed.” Troy frowned. “I need to help you move on from here. Into wherever ghosts go after they die. So you won’t be stuck here, and, and maybe you’ll be able to find Raphael on the other side.”

Abed’s face grew stormier for a moment, then smoothed out again. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Troy tried for a smile.

“Okay,” Abed repeated. Then he dissipated like a wisp of smoke blown out of the air by a sharp wind.

~

Paige’s work had booked them a room in a fancy hotel in Manhattan, with golden walls and a view of Times Square. Paige didn’t make Troy go to the boring events with her, and in return, Troy didn’t make her marathon  _ Kickpuncher _ movies with him in the evenings when she shucked off her blazer and tailored trousers and face-planted onto her mattress. 

Paige brought Troy to all the best restaurants and even the comic book shop on Broadway. He wandered the stacks for an hour, touching the plastic covers on the comics and fingering the action figures on display. Every new discovery had his toes curling with excitement at the thought of showing Abed all of these things, before he remembered the look on Abed’s face the last time he saw him and the buzzing glow in Troy’s stomach dimmed.

When Paige had to attend a dinner on Sunday night, Troy ordered the most unpronounceable menu items from room service (bouillabaisse and a nicoise salad) and a tray of cocktails to experiment with.

He started with the Mai Tai because it had a temptingly shiny maraschino cherry sticking out of the top. Then he moved onto the Old Fashioned because it was what Don Draper drank. Then there was the apple-tini, which, well, how could he not? By the time he reached the Twelve Mile Limit, which the fourth Inspector on  _ Inspector Spacetime _ had in that one scene, Troy began to feel a bit forlorn. 

He’d thought that this would be a fun thing to do, but all each drink did was make him wonder what Abed would have said about how they smelled or how many other movie and TV cocktails Abed would have been able to think of. 

Troy downed the last few drops of the reddish drink and flopped onto his back. He wondered what Abed was doing right now — perhaps rattling around in the vents or floating by the window to keep up appearances for the neighbours. 

Or maybe he was leafing through those letters again. Troy rubbed at his eyes, but he couldn’t erase the image of Abed holding the brittle papers to his heart like he could touch Raphael through them. Troy remembered those sonorous odes to Raphael’s embrace. He wondered if, when Abed concentrated all his energy on holding and moving objects, he was rewarded with any sense of friction and texture and resistance and give that reminded him of the other man’s touch.

Troy rolled over on the bed. The warm hotel lamp and the city lights outside the window swam and his blinks slowed like syrup. Drinking was no fun alone.

As he sank into the quicksand of sleep, Troy dreamed that he lay in his bed at home, with its spaceship-studded covers and Abed’s head pillowed beside him, and the moonlight shot through Abed’s visage so Troy couldn’t see his eyes but Abed opened his mouth and though his lips formed words, all Troy could hear was a high-pitched whistle, and then Abed turned away and rose from the bed and when Troy blinked he saw that someone had taken Abed’s gossamer hand and led him into a yawning blaze of light.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a shorter one (?) but finally some trobed interaction!  
> not my finest work, and most of it was banged out over one evening and barely edited so i apologize, but i hope y'all enjoy.

Troy bounced on his toes, vibrating, as his and Paige’s train pulled into Port Vincent Station. The city had been fun, but Troy couldn’t wait to sink into his own bed, shower in his own bathroom, and walk on his own floorboards. 

The sound of the key sliding home into the lock settled something in Troy’s stomach. He nudged the door open, already looking up at the bannister for a glimpse of spindly legs swinging. 

Troy frowned. There was no one there.

“Abed?” he called. He shuffled in and plopped his duffel bag down. He wandered through the corridors, crooning Abed’s name like someone searching for an errant cat. 

Not a single piece of furniture, chip of paint, or tendril of houseplant was out of place. Unease clawed its way up Troy’s throat. When he circled all the way back to the living room, he turned on the spot, eyes frantically scanning the ceiling and under the couch and the shadows in the corners. 

“Hey, buddy, where are you?”

Abed couldn’t leave the house — his spirit was tied to it. There was nowhere he could have gone but… Troy swallowed that thought. He tried not to visualize that dream he’d had on his last night in Manhattan, that dream where Abed had slipped away from him and into an unknowable place.

“Abed!” Troy called out. His heart began to thump against his ribcage. “Abed, come on! It’s not funny anymore! I get it, you’re better than me at hide and seek. We established that, like, a month ago.”

The house had never rung with such silence before. Each thump and scrape Troy’s feet made as he plodded back up the stairs sent a wave of emptiness reverberating through his body.

If Abed really had left this plane...Troy should be happy, right? But how could he, when all he wanted right now was to have Abed back? Without Abed, Troy felt lost in the house, like he’d gone underwater and didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. 

That feeling clung to Troy as he showered and unpacked. Every cell in his body shook with confusion and distraught and discomfort. He stooped and stretched to check each cranny of the house as he floated about his evening routine, as if he could somehow catch Abed curled up and napping in the corner of a closet or atop a high shelf when really, Troy knew that Abed only became visible when he focused on doing it.

After Troy had a lackluster dinner of macaroni and wilted vegetables, he sank into his armchair in front of the boxy old TV. He wriggled around, but he couldn’t seem to find comfort even here. 

Troy’s gaze snagged on the pile of DVDs he and Abed had collected over the last few months. One DVD case lay open on top of the pile, the way Troy had left it when he went on his trip: the limited-edition  _ The Dark Knight _ DVD with bonus footage and commentary from Christian Bale and a custom message of up to four words. Naturally, Troy had dedicated the message to Abed, whom he secretly thought made a better Batman than Christian Bale did.

Troy turned on the TV.  _ The Dark Knight _ began playing from the exact moment Troy had paused it on Thursday night. He switched off the TV and struggled out of the armchair. 

Suddenly, he didn’t feel like watching a movie anymore.

~

Troy had known that he’d loved Abed. But he hadn’t realized how deeply Abed had wedged his ghostly self into Troy’s life. Going through the motions, waking up and sleeping, dining and watching TV, even leaving and entering the house, Troy felt off-balance and stilted, like he was forgetting something important. 

Troy found himself scattered — unable to finish chores, leaving water running, living off takeout. He didn’t think he’d watered his plants in days — no, weeks. It’d been three weeks since he returned to an empty house now, and he’d spent the last two strictly indoors.

Even Jeff, who’d vowed never to return to 25 Cornelia Avenue, came knocking with a bottle of whisky and a copy of  _ Kickpuncher: Detroit _ one day, trying and failing to act casual.

“It’s quiet in here,” Jeff remarked as he toed off his shoes in the entrance hall. At the wilted look on Troy’s face, Jeff hurriedly added, “But nice! Nice quiet! And anyway, it’ll be filled with the dulcet tones of…” He gave the DVD cover a quick glance. “...Kim Yang soon.”

“That’s the director,” Troy mumbled, leading the way into the living room. 

“Well,” said Jeff, still using his falsely bright voice, “your turnips look amazing. And were those beets I saw out there? Are you gonna be taking them to the farmer’s market?”

“You don’t have to try to make me feel better, Jeff, I know my garden’s dying. I just haven’t been able to get my legs to take me out there or my hands to water them.”

“What?” Jeff stopped and frowned. “No, I meant it. Your garden’s flourishing. You really haven’t gone out there and seen it?”

Troy looked over his shoulder at Jeff, who spread his hands. Troy raced back to the front door, flung it open, and turned on the porch light. Rows of leafy green blooms burst from the flowerbeds. Ripe, red-and-golden apples hung from the apple tree. Buttery yellow squash blossoms, petals furled for the evening, bobbed in the light breeze.

“I don’t understand,” Troy murmured.

Jeff stepped outside, rubbing his arms. “It looks great, Troy, but c’mon, let’s get inside and close the door.”

Troy didn’t pay attention to a single frame of  _ Kickpuncher: Detroit _ . Jeff poured glass after glass of whisky and yammered on about the hot female lead and the bad costumes, and Troy just nodded and offered a short laugh here and there until eventually the screen darkened and the credits rolled.

“Well, that was more enjoyable than I thought it’d be,” said Jeff, reaching for the whisky bottle again. “Punchkicker’s fake-out at the end there almost got me. And the car chase? Sublime.”

Troy grabbed Jeff’s wrist before he could wrap his fingers around the bottle. “Um,” said Troy, “look, thanks for coming over. I had a good time. But, uh, I’m kinda tired now.” He feigned a wide yawn.

Jeff squinted at Troy’s face, as if he was searching for something. “You sure you’re good?”

Troy nodded, and this time, his smile was genuine. “Peachy keen, Avril Lavigne.”

As soon as the door shut behind Jeff, Troy was knocking over weeks’ worth of empty pizza boxes, milk cartons, and discarded clothes as he raced to the kitchen. He rounded the corner and advanced on the stove and sink, neither of which he’d touched for a fortnight. He reached over a crusty plate on the counter to switch on the light. 

Troy’s potted basil sat on the windowsill, illuminated by the fluorescent lightbulb. He walked closer and caressed a crisp green leaf with his knuckle. The plant was bright green and perky, its soil dark and moist.

He hadn’t misted, watered, or even looked at this plant in weeks. 

The sensation started in his heart: a buoying of breath, an unknotting of tension. It spread to his limbs, and soon it felt as if Troy could float off the linoleum tiles and bump his head against the plaster ceiling. His veins hummed and sang and he couldn’t be bothered to bring himself down from this high, because now he knew for certain.

Abed was still here.

Troy grasped a basil leaf with a shaking hand. 

“Abed,” he began. “Abed, I don’t know what I did to make you mad. I don’t even know if you’re mad, or if you’re scared or annoyed or whatever. But, please. I know you wouldn’t have kept my plants alive for me if you didn’t still care a little bit. Please,” he whispered after another second.

Although Troy had his back turned, he could feel the precise moment Abed came into view. When he turned to appraise the spindly man hovering in the middle of the kitchen, Troy was ready for the catch in his throat. He didn’t even mind that he couldn’t breathe for half a second. 

Abed had his eyes cast down at the grimy tiles, cheekbones thrown into relief by the harsh light glaring from above him. 

“Abed,” Troy breathed. “I’ve missed you so much. Where’ve you been?”

“Around.”

“I’ve been...I’ve been worried sick, man. Why wouldn’t you talk to me? Are you mad at me?”

“At first, yes,” said Abed. “But then I was more embarrassed than mad.”

“What do you mean?”

Abed examined the cluttered sink and the blackened stove. Troy was too busy drinking in Abed’s features — everything he’d been missing in these weeks — to feel self-conscious about the mess. 

“When you left,” Abed finally said, then paused again, jaw working. “I don’t know what happened. It was like something took over me and I wasn’t in control of what I was feeling or thinking or doing. I could feel my mind turning back time, and I was reliving all those other times people have moved in only to run away from me weeks later, leaving me alone and empty and  _ dead _ all over again, over and over and over again. And I know I shouldn’t blame anyone for that when I was the one scaring them off on purpose, but—” His voice cracked, a barely detectable fissure. “It was you this time. And I couldn’t take it.” His head bowed again. “Sorry I got emotional.”

Troy blinked against the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

“It was just a weekend trip.” Abed murmured the words to himself like an oft-repeated mantra. “It wasn’t your fault. I just...turned into a ball of metaphysical energy and I couldn’t breathe or smell or touch or  _ feel _ anything and...and it was horrible. And I thought you’d left. You’d been drawing away from me, and then you packed your bags and left.”

Troy crossed the space between them in two strides. 

“I’m — I won’t leave again, Abed,” he said firmly. “I promise.”

Abed shook his head. He still wouldn’t look at Troy. “You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can.”

“You can’t. You have a life to live. I have...this.” Abed gestured at his own diaphanous body.

Troy squeezed his eyes shut. Abed was right. The whole reason Troy had needed to pull away from Abed was that Troy was too human for him. 

Troy opened his eyes and held a palm up to Abed. “Can you touch me?”

Abed frowned. Troy had never asked that before, and Abed had never tried. He lifted a shimmering hand toward Troy’s. 

At first, Troy felt nothing. Then, like stars blinking into a newborn night sky, pricks of sensation danced along Troy’s nerve endings. It didn’t feel like a warm, solid human hand — more like the suggestion of a hand, the kind you felt when you imagined yourself holding hands with a crush. A whisper of a touch.

Judging by Abed’s wide-eyed look, he felt it too.

A smile spread across Troy’s face. 

“See?” Troy said. “My life and yours — they’re not so incompatible. You’ve given me more life in these months than I’ve ever lived in the last twenty-two years.”

Abed turned his eyes upon Troy, and suddenly, Troy was bare. Troy shut his mouth, wondering if he’d already said too much. 

“Do you remember when you came home and I was reading the letters I wrote to Raphael?” Abed asked.

Troy nodded and almost dropped his hand, but the implication of a squeeze kept him from doing so.

“I thought I’d forgotten how to love,” said Abed, “over the last century or so. Hell, I thought I’d forgotten everything from joy to sorrow to...how to talk to another person. Before you came along.”

The corner of Troy’s lips twitched upward.

“I always thought that Raphael was my forever love,” Abed continued. “I mean, you read the letters. You know how I felt about him. When I died for him, it cemented my notion that that was it for me. The end of our story was the end of mine. So when  _ you  _ happened, I was confused. And upset and freaked-out. I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t leave the house. Leave me.”

Troy held onto Abed’s hand and waited patiently for him to gather his words.

“Oh, and I left one out — I was also guilty. I felt guilty toward Raphael for a while. So I went and dug up the letters to read again, to try to remember him and think of what he would have said to me. And then I figured it out.”

“Why would you feel guilty?” Troy asked.

“Don’t you get it?” Abed blinked at Troy in that matter-of-fact way of his. “I’m in love with you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your kudos and comments (and asks and tags) mean the world! thank you!  
> follow me on tumblr @[sleepy-santiago](sleepy-santiago.tumblr.com).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's for you emma😏

Troy almost didn’t hear the words Abed said next. His brain looped around itself again and again, stuck on those five beautiful words:  _ I’m in love with you _ . 

“I read those letters again that day, asking myself what Raphael would have said to me in that moment,” Abed went on, oblivious to Troy’s ongoing aneurysm.

Over the course of his life, Troy had catalogued the brain feelings he’d experienced in various situations: wrinkled (when someone pointed out a connection he’d never thought about before), short-circuited (when something unusual happened and Troy didn’t have a script to follow), and crying (when Troy did something like spill his milkshake all over everyone’s menus at Fuddrucker’s and he didn’t know how to fix it).

Right now, Troy’s brain felt like it was receiving a massage at a happy-endings parlour (which Troy assumed were high-end spas where the masseuses told you fairytales while you relaxed). 

“Troy? Are you still with me?” Abed asked primly.

“Can—can you say that again?”

“Troy, are you still w—”

“No, I mean—” Troy flapped his hand. “The earlier thing. The thing you said after ‘Don’t you get it?’”

Abed’s lips curved into a crescent. “I’m in love with you.”

It blew Troy’s mind, the way he uttered those words like they were fact, like he was telling Troy that the sky was blue and that the Sebaceans in  _ Farscape _ were just futuristic humans.

“Troy?” Abed waved a hand in front of Troy’s face. “You’re smiling like those kids in  _ Truth or Dare _ again.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Troy shook his head. “Continue.”

Abed nodded. “Well, what I figured out was that Raphael had moved on. So why couldn’t I? All this time, I’d been thinking about moving on in the wrong way — I thought it meant me moving on from this world and leaving it behind. But now I realize that that’s not it. Now I know that everything that’s happened has been leading me to you. I’ve already moved on. I’ve moved onto you.”

Troy’s eyes glittered. “You don’t feel bad about Raphael anymore?”

“He would’ve liked you, too, you know.” Abed looked wistful. “But, no. I don’t feel guilty anymore.” His ephemeral fingers curled and laced with Troy’s. “Our story is long over. And he would’ve wanted me to be happy.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Troy confessed.

“It would be nice,” Abed said, eyes lowering, “if you said it back to me. For starters.”

Troy tilted his head in confusion for a moment before his eyes lit up in understanding. Despite himself, his heart sped up.

“Abed, I love you.”

Abed met Troy’s eyes again and grinned. “I know.”

~

As he blinked awake to a late-November morning sun straining through the thin curtains, Troy became aware of the presence beside him. Then he noticed the airy touch of the wavering hand on his chest. 

Head resting on the pillow beside Troy’s, Abed’s form flickered as he yawned and opened his bleary eyes. Troy’s heart raced. Abed didn’t need to sleep — had he used up all of his metaphysical energy staying with Troy through the night? Underneath Abed’s hand, Troy’s skin prickled with warmth.

“Good morning,” Abed mumbled. He caught the startled look on Troy’s face. “I’m okay. I rested during the night. Turns out, I can actually engage in a form of ‘sleep’ as a ghost. Pretty cool, right?”

Troy just nodded, unable to form words through the unexpected cloud of affection clogging his ribcage. 

“I love you,” Troy said, just because he could.

Abed’s hand slid up from Troy’s chest to cup his jaw, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. “I love you, too.”

Troy brought his hand up and placed it on top of Abed’s, careful not to let it fall through the ghost’s hand. It wasn’t difficult — Abed’s hand offered a flutter of resistance that Troy’s hand could rest upon. Troy traced a fingertip over the air that shaped Abed’s knuckle. He wondered if Abed’s touch felt different in different spots. 

As if reading Troy’s mind, Abed smiled and stroked his thumb over Troy’s cheek. “I’d been thinking about what it might feel like to touch you for a long time.”

“Me too. How long?”

Abed thought for a moment. “The night you first made buttered noodles for me. When we decided to get a Blu-Ray.”

Troy’s heart stuttered again. Abed really was bad for his cardiac health. “That early?”

“What about you?”

“Every night since I realized I was in love with you.”

Abed shifted closer. Troy could count the pale eyelashes that fanned across Abed’s brow bone. 

“What did you think about?” Abed asked.

“I thought about you touching my face, just like this.”

“What else?”

“I thought about you...kissing me. Right here.” Troy tapped his own temple.

Abed’s face moved closer until it eclipsed Troy’s vision. Troy could see his bedroom walls through Abed’s body, but he chose to fix his gaze on the long line of Abed’s throat instead. Troy shivered at the brush of ghostly lips at his hairline.

“Where else?” Abed whispered.

“M-my neck.”

Abed ducked lower and his insubstantial hair skimmed Troy’s chin as he pressed a light kiss to the hollow of Troy’s throat. He looked expectantly at Troy again.

“My…” Troy licked his lips. “My mouth.”

Abed’s eyes fluttered shut as he leaned in close. Troy’s slid closed soon after. His lips parted in anticipation. It felt like a breath of air on his lips at first, and then something like the barely-there velveteen underside of a flower petal. It was strange, and it took Troy two more kisses before he adjusted to the sensation of kissing energy-charged air. Their lips moved together, sliding against each other in perfect tandem.

Troy gasped as they broke apart. “Whoa.”

“Whoa,” Abed agreed. His hand remained, cool and warm at the same time, against Troy’s cheek.

~

Troy hummed as he kneaded the dough for his mother’s chocolate blueberry pie recipe. For as long as Troy could remember, she’d liked to bake it as a treat on what she called Special Days — promotions at work, good report cards from school, birthdays, and so on. Sometimes, “it’s a good day to be happy” was a good enough reason to have a Special Day. Troy would hover around her, stealing bites of the decadent filling before she scooped the filling into the pie, until his teeth and tongue stained purple.

It’d been exactly a week since Abed told Troy that he loved him — a worthy cause for a Special Day.

Out of habit, Troy lifted his hands from the ball of dough to slurp a spoonful of the mashed blueberry filling in the bowl beside him. Tart berry, coconut sugar, and gooey chocolate set fireworks dancing across the roof of his mouth. He snuck another bite before returning to his dough.

Troy was laying the top crust over the assembled pie when he heard the crinkle of something light and plastic behind him. He turned.

A sheet of saran wrap bobbed midair behind Troy. A crooked smile tilted Troy’s mouth and he leaned back against the counter.

“What are you doing with that, Abed?”

“Remember when we watched  _ Pushing Daisies _ ?” said Abed as he materialized behind the sheet. He tipped his head to the side in a second, silent question.

“Yes,” Troy said in answer to both questions.

Abed surged closer, holding up the plastic wrap between them.

Troy closed his eyes before the cool touch of the plastic settled over his nose, forehead, chin. And then there were lips on his — pressing through the saran wrap, nipping at his Cupid’s bow, urging his mouth open. Troy’s hand shot out to grip the edge of the counter for support as Abed chased out his tongue with cocksure finesse. 

This was a pressure that wasn’t there when they kissed slow and light in Troy’s bed, when all Abed’s lips left on Troy’s skin was an impression of a touch. Flesh pushed against slippery plastic in equal force. The shape of Abed’s lips was palpable against Troy’s.

Troy’s breath left him but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he palmed Abed’s cheek through the plastic and his teeth caught on Abed’s eager lips.

They only came apart when the saran wrap had bunched together into too messy and small a piece for them to untangle. Abed blinked at Troy, his body wavering in the air as his energy dipped. 

“Your mouth is purple,” said Abed. His fingers flexed and curled by his side. And then he disappeared.

Troy’s fingers came up to his sensitive lips. They were stretched wide in a berry-stained grin.

The oven beeped and flashed:  _ Preheated to 350°F _ .

~

Snow started falling in the second week of December. Only light, microscopic flakes that melted as soon as they fizzled onto the windowsills, but Abed took huge delight in it. 

“It’s the beginning of Christmas season,” he told Troy, practically vibrating in excitement. “I love Christmas.”

“I’ve never celebrated Christmas,” Troy admitted.

“What?” Abed’s eyes rounded.

“I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness,” Troy explained. “We’re not allowed to. That’s why we had so many Special Days at home instead of celebrating actual holidays.”

“Would you like to celebrate Christmas?” Abed asked.

No one had ever asked Troy that before. He thought for a moment.

“I do,” Troy finally said. “Is it like it is in the movies?”

“It can be if we want it to be.”

A small Christmas tree went up in the living room, where Troy and Abed ad-libbed rap versions of Christmas carols as they hung baubles and novelty ornaments on the tree. Abed drew up a calendar to schedule their Christmas movie marathons for the month. Troy used the leftover apples from the fall to make hot cider, which they soon discovered was one of Abed’s new favourite scents.

Over the next two weeks, the snow grew into flurries like the kind in romantic Christmas Hallmark movies, and then into fat flakes of whipping snow that gathered into banks and blanketed the town in white. 

Wrapped in his blanket and curled into his pillows, Troy watched the heavy snowflakes sail by and amass on his windowsill. The scraggly boughs of the tree outside waved forlornly. The sense of isolation and quietude that snow brought had always given him a strange feeling — at once reflective and aching. Snow had a way of making you feel like you were the only person left alive in the world.

That must’ve been how Abed felt all the time. Troy burrowed deeper into the blanket.

“What’s wrong?” Abed asked from behind Troy.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Being the only person alive in the world.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know.” Troy frowned. “That’s the problem.”

“It would be a lot of freedom.”

“But to do what? Everything I wanna do is with you or my friends, or even the people around me. I could plant vegetables to feed myself, but I wouldn’t be able to bring them to the market to share them with everyone. I could watch movies all day, but I wouldn’t be able to make fun of them with you.” Troy sighed. “How did you do it for all these years?”

“That’s over now. I have you.”

“Yeah, but…” Troy turned over to face Abed. He bit his lip. “I’m not going to be here forever.”

Abed looked down at the sheets and then back up at Troy. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

Troy nodded. “It’s why I didn’t want to allow myself to be in love with you at first. I’m—I’m just a blip. I’m a drop of water in the ocean of your life. And I don’t want to leave you — I’d do anything to stay with you forever. But I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“Troy.” Abed placed a hand on Troy’s face and he leaned into the ghost’s touch instinctively. “You already have.”

“I...don’t understand.”

“You’re not a drop of water. You’re...the island in my raging sea. You’re my resting place. You’re my happy ending.” Abed caressed Troy’s cheek and his hand slid back to hold his jaw, thumb rubbing circles into Troy’s skin. Outside, the wind moaned. “Don’t worry about what we can’t control. Let’s just take solace in what we have now.”

Snow had a way of making you feel alone. But it also had a way of making you feel safe and sheltered in. Troy snuggled into his blanket and turned his head to kiss the hand on his face.

“I love you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you might have seen, the number of total chapters has changed and this is the penultimate chapter!! sorry this was kinda filler-y and directionless. thank you for reading!!!  
> if you have been enjoying the aesthetic of this fic, you might like the [pinterest board i made for it](https://www.pinterest.ca/sleepyfacegrace/oh-my-god-they-were-ghost-roommates/).  
> as always feel free to follow and yell with me [on tumblr](sleepy-santiago.tumblr.com).  
> thank you for all the love <3


	8. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahh we made it to the end!! thank you so much for reading this fic it's silly but it meant so much to me to see y'all reading and commenting every time i updated like ahhhhhh i love you so much. you're everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. i know everyone is sick of me apologizing for my writing but like i don't care so here i go. this epilogue is pretty much just self-indulgent waxing and i'm sorry for that sksdfjskj. i hope you enjoy regardless. <3

Spring breathed itself into 25 Cornelia Avenue through the release of the soil from icy clutches, the scent of tulips in moist air, and the warmth of the sun on the bedsheets. Soon, July’s heat settled in and spring bowed into summer as the cool morning condensation disappeared from the windows.

If houses had memories, 25 Cornelia Avenue would have been remembering this time last year, when her beams bent under the weight of dust and her walls groaned with disuse. She would have shivered at the thought of the grime that once coated her skin and marvelled at her now-shiny bricks. She would have tried to count how many years had passed since she’d last been able to breathe, before a man with gentle hands and a crooked smile came to clear her passageways and pump life back into her.

Most of all, she would have remembered the ghost who clattered around inside her veins, aimless and full of spite, allowing only a broken television to keep him company. She would have cringed at the memory of family after couple after friend-group running from her doors and screaming bloody murder at the flaming visage inside. She would have sighed as she recalled the lonely wails that kept her alert at night, echoing through her halls and shaking the pipes loose.

And perhaps she would also have reflected on the year that had since passed — the flowers and vegetables blooming in the garden, the lovely green paint coating her walls, the stolen kisses beneath bedsheets and around corners. 

But houses don’t have memories, and a home is only as alive as the people living in it. So while 25 Cornelia Avenue could not remember, the ghost and his lover did. And in their remembrance, the townhouse pulsed with their heartbeat. 

Without warning, August arrived. The man with the gentle hands could be seen trekking from the garden to a small pickup truck with armloads of garden vegetables every weekend. His ghost watched from the window, but he no longer dissolved into panic when the man left. The ghost knew now that the man would come home. Every day, without fail, no matter how long it took, he would come home. 

And when he did come home, it was to a kiss as quiet and bright as the stars in the sky. Kisses led to laughter led to cuddling in front of that old television, where _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ played.

“I know what _you_ did last summer,” the ghost said, tapping his lover’s broad nose. The nose in question twitched at the tickling touch.

“What?” said the man, distracted by the crab-infested corpse in Jennifer Love Hewitt’s car trunk.

“Never mind,” the ghost answered fondly. What he’d been about to say was a bit cheesy for his own tastes anyway.

It was eight forty-five in the evening, and the sun had barely begun to think about setting. August stretched the days out like that — it made you think you had more time than you really did. The ghost curled his arm around his lover’s shoulder. For these two, August was more than an illusion. August was the place where it started. Where a broke community college graduate first made a promise to stay. Where a ghost first allowed him to tread on into his heart.

For them, August was a little piece of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU AGAIN FOR READING!!! your kudos and comments have genuinely fueled me for the past months. i love u so much.  
> find me on tumblr @[sleepy-santiago](sleepy-santiago.tumblr.com) <3


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